I’ve been having a great time playing the Witness, thanks a lot! My computer needs some maintenance and I’m worried about losing my save files. I use the DRM free version, and is it enough if I just make a backup of the “The Witness/logs/” file? Or is there something else to backup? There’s nothing in the Roaming file on my computer (I believe because I didn’t go for the Steam option).

Jonathan, this seems like a place to reach out to you. I would love to have a director’s cut walk-through that I can digest after I reach a level of satisfaction with my efforts in the game. (Some reviews have mentioned that it takes around 40 hours to reach two different senses of having completed the game.) What I want is a combination of making sure that I found every activity that you and your team wanted me to engage in, crossed with some commentary that describes both what you hoped I would learn from a given puzzle and what you hoped I would notice and enjoy from a given bit of scenery. This seems to me like an add-on that would be worth additional money.

When you have reached that level of satisfaction,i highly suggest you go watch the playthrough that Jonathan did with the guys at Giant Bomb. It seems that he doesn’t want to come out and say what he wants you to feel or take away from the game. He wants his art to speak for itself. They have some great conversations about the development of the game and will probably give you closer to what you’re looking for.

Jonathan,
Probably unlikely that you’ll read this but something has been running through my head recently.

Not sure if you are familiar with Shane Carruth (of Primer pseudo fame)…but I have for some time seen a parallel in his filmmaking/narrative style and your games. I just found a copy of the (looong) screenplay of his unmade ‘A Topiary’ (and it’s a real shame that is is unlikely to ever be filmed.) Reading it has only solidified the connections for me. He tells stories as though they are massive puzzles.

Without spoiling too much of A Topiary, the first section actually plays out just like a real-life sequence of the ‘aha’ moments you’ve been advocating in the Witness. In fact in this case the a-ha’s are layered, as we see characters having their own moments, while we as the viewer(reader) have our own moments by connecting the dots of what we are being shown. With a script you can go back and forth over things as you read, but it’s clear that as a film, multiple viewings would be warranted to solidify an understanding of what’s going on.

All in all it just seems like an incredible piece of work (along with his other recent film, Upstream Color) that has a lot philosophically(pedagogically?) in common with The Witness. Just curious to see if you had any thoughts